It is frequently desirable for the users of current computing devices to communicate with one another. For example, users may desire to send short communications or messages to one another over the Internet. The users may use these messages to communicate any of a variety of information, such as details about their day, questions about homework, details about boyfriends/girlfriends, information regarding computer games, just to chat, etc. It is also often desirable to allow other entities, such as publishers of applications being used by the users, or administrators of systems or services being used by the users, to communicate with the users. For example, a publisher of an application may desire to send a short communication or message to the users of the application about a new version of the application that will soon be available.
With some devices, such as desktop computers, users can manage the messages they receive fairly easily because of the input and output components associated with those devices. For example, desktop computers typically have a cursor control device (e.g., a mouse) and a keyboard that allow the user to easily operate the computer's user interface and easily input a wide variety of information in different manners (e.g., by point and click with the cursor control device, by typing commands on the keyboard, etc.).
With other devices, however, it is more difficult for users to manage the messages they receive. Some of these devices, such as game consoles, have a more restricted user input mechanism, such as a game controller which may have a few buttons, triggers, and/or joysticks to allow user input of information. With such a restricted user input mechanism, managing received messages can be cumbersome for the user. Additionally, some of these devices, such as game consoles, typically display messages on a display device (such as a television) that makes it difficult to read messages if too many messages are displayed at the same time. These problems are only exacerbated as the number of messages received by the user increases. Thus, it would be beneficial to have a way to reduce the burden on the user of managing messages they receive.